Icicle and Curtain Lights

Icicle lights, of all the ways to decorated ones home or business they have to be one of the easiest. Run some along the gutter or roof line and you easily outline your building for a quick and great looking decoration that all can enjoy. Icicle lights come in a variety of colors and bulb counts. The most common bulb counts are 100 and 150, we do offer a 300 pack, but it's just two 150's packaged together. They come in both white wire and green and have a small selection of bulb colors available.

Those of course are just the classic, no frills lights. We are beginning to carry some new and interesting icicle strings, we have some strings that morph from one color into another. We have some strings that have a simulated dripping effect. We have some Commercial Icicle lights that are tough, heavy duty rubber coated wire, can connect up to 10 sets together, and so on. The most different light string is of course are our LED Icicle lights. If you have ever read any of our blog entries you surely know that we are crazy about LED, these strings are no exception. They have strange bulb counts (70 lights and 105 lights) but all the great colors and advantages of LED.

In the same family but for different application, Curtain lights are constructed in the same general way as icicles but have different type drops. Curtain lights have drops that are all the same length, hence the name. They are great for using along walls or entrances. These are popular year around, but during the spring/summer they are used a lot for weddings. A good 75% of all curtain lights sold during the off seasons are for wedding uses. Our standard curtain light string is constructed just like icicle lights, simple, easy to use and maintain. If you need something a little bit tougher our commercial curtain lights (or Wall of Light) is a great alternative. Our wall of light is a tough, heavy duty light string. It has a main power cord that runs along the top, and each drop has a special screw in adapter that allows you to choose where you want your drops. You have more control over you string of lights, and that's always a good thing.

I hope you've gotten a little better understanding of icicle and curtain light strings. Both are easy to use strings that look great for more than just Christmas lighting. Visit our Icicle Page to view all the products we carry.

--
Zach Broyles
All American Christmas Co.

Nativity Scenes and Displays...

Nativity Scenes are a classic Christmas decoration and simply cannot be missed during the season. These types of Manger scenes come in a variety of shapes and styles, everything from the simple lighted frame displays to the larger than life size fiberglass pieces.

We carry a large selection of Nativity light displays. These Displays range in size from 3 feet to 7 or more! These are great because they require little maintenance and care in the off season, just store them (making sure you protect the bulbs, and keep them out of the weather) and you're good until next year. Churches, businesses, homes, parks, anyone can enjoy these larger than life scenes. You can always find Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus in a set, but we also carry a large line of other displays too. Wise men, Mangers, Angels, Animals, and more. You can create HUGE scenes will all these pieces.



On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Fiberglass Nativity Scenes. These offer customers with a completely different look. Most of these pieces are hand painted and made of high quality fiberglass and look great outdoors. Like the light displays these come in a huge variety of size, styles, and with many different figures. You can get a huge scene going,with some styles you could have up to 19 pieces! These are expensive pieces but really give a dramatic effect, they can be used outdoors in the weather and lit with spot lights for night time scenes.


Visit either of our websites to view our great selection of Nativity scenes, both Fiberglass and lighted Displays

SPT-2 Wire...

SPT-2 Wire is a great alternative to the standard SPT-1 Wire that most companies carry if you are looking to run higher wattage bulbs or do longer runs. As you can see from the picture on the left, both SPT-1 and 2 are 18 gauge wire (determined by the copper inside the wire), but SPT-2 (bottom of picture) has a noticeable amount more of insulation. This extra insulation allows this wire to be rated at 10 amps (as opposed to 7 amp Spt-1).

SPT-2 is usually considered a commercial product, but works equally as well for small residential projects as well. We carry a full line of products for this wire type, bare wire, quick connect plugs, replacement sockets, and C7 & C9 Spools. Using 10 amp C7 spools will allow you use 7 watt bulbs without concern, and with C9 you can use 10 watts bulbs no problem.

Please note, you shouldn't mix and match Spt-1 and 2 products. For example, you shouldn't use SPT-1 barewire with SPT-2 sockets.

Unlike most big Christmas Light retailers we carry a wide varitey of C7 & C9 lightline spools in SPT-2. They are available in both Green and White wire colors, and in all major spacings.

Visit www.AAChristmas.com to view all our SPT-2 products.

Christmas light controllers...

Most of us have seen the videos of Christmas lights on homes that are synced up to music, and while the same number of us normally don't have the time or money to devote to those sort of Christmas light antics there are some simple and affordable ways to animate the lights on your home.

Our Musical Christmas controller is by far the most popular light controller we have ever carried. This easy to use controller features six outlets and 20 different Christmas and Holiday songs! There are 3 modes for your Light Show; Steady, which makes all the lights stay on, Unison, lights simply in time to the music, and Multiplex, this mode makes every outlet effectively a different instrument so that every string of lights is doing its own part of the song. It can handle a total of 12 amps, has a built in speaker, and can be mounted in a variety of ways. No programming, no dip switches or jumpers, just a simple plug in, turn on operation.


If you don't need music and just want to simply animate a display we have our small preset chasing controllers. These controllers have anywhere from 2 to 4 outlets and a dial that you can use to control speed of the chase. These controllers simple rotate through the outlets, lets say you have a 3 circuit chasing controller, all the controller will do will be a simple turning on and off of each outlet as they are ordered. So, outlet 1 is on then turns off, then outlet 2 comes on and then turns off, and so on. There's a small potentiometer that controls the speed, from slow to fast.





On the opposite end of the chasing controller spectrum we have our Programmable Chasing Controllers. These controllers have small DIP switches which allows the user to make their own light show. The more expensive versions of this controller can do build ups, fades, chases, flashes, and can be set to do anywhere from 2 to 8 circuits!


If you just need a gentle fading controller we offer those too, our small fader box simply plugs into a wall outlet and lets the user plug two different strands of lights into the controller. We do offer some commercial quality Faders as well.



I hope this post has given you some insight into the world of Christmas light controllers. We carry a wide variety of controller but no magical controller that makes normal lights chase, fade, twinkle, etc inside the string itself (btw if you know someone who makes one, send us a email!).

Click here to check out all our Light Controllers

--
Zach Broyles
All American Christmas Co.

Getting a decorating plan for your Wedding Lights...

90% of the time when a customer calls us to purchase lights to be used in decorating a wedding they have not fully laid out a plan on how to hang their lights, get power to them, and how to hide the wires. These steps are quite possibly the most important part of your light decorating agenda and should never...ever be a afterthought.

The first and the most important step is planning how to hang your lights. If you're purchasing lights to be hung along a wall or a ceiling figure out how you can attach them to the wall or ceiling before you commit money to a product. If a room has block walls or something you cannot drill or hammer nails into you may have to improvise with tape or something like a sticky pad hanger (the 3m Command Series largest hook holds up to 7.5 lbs per hook) that wont damage your walls. Tapes and sticky hangers might not have the strength to hold up a whole string of heavy duty Curtain lights so you may be out of luck. If the ceiling has a drop panel ceiling you may be able to hang your lights from the frame in the ceiling. You can use fishing line, thin wire, even paper clips can be transformed into a quick and easy hanging device for drop ceilings. Remember to try not to damage the panels if you want your deposit back!

The second step may be more important than the first to some but finding a good power source for your lights is second on our list. Hanging lights from a wall or ceiling can put a decorator in between a rock and hard place, they can really give a great atmosphere by hanging lights but it's usually hard to get power where you need it. You usually want to draw a layout of your room, note where your power outlets are and then using a pencil, draw your extensions cords to where your lights will be. Using your extension cord map you can start to power you lights. We recommend using our bulk bare wire rolls and quick connect plugs to make your own power cords, this way you can hide them (more on that later) and cut them to EXACT length that you need. If you have to run up a wall, find a corner and run it up the corner taping it as you go up. Another option if you are hanging lights from a drop ceiling is to run the power up the wall far away from the wedding action and simply run it over the ceiling panels and drop it out where you need to power lights. Powering lights on tables or in places where the power is closer to the ground is easier, again make a map and see how you need to layout your wires. You usually want to keep wires out of high traffic areas but you can always use our bare wire and quick connect plugs to make your own perfectly cut cords and them tape them to the floor.

The last and final step is hiding the wires. No one wants a extension cord to ruin a good wedding photo. Hiding extension cords isn't as hard as it may seem, on carpet you want to stick your wires along the wall or next to furniture and you can usually push the wire into the seam and make it almost disappear if the carpet is thick enough. Tile or hard floors can be a bit trickier, usually running wires along the wall and only coming out when necessary is about the best one can do, you can use tape to secure the cordage and or rugs laid over the wires will really help if you have to take pictures in a are with a lot of wires about. Another tip is to use anything around to hide your outlets and wires, foliage, cloth, anything available that matches the weddings theme will work.

I hope this has given you some insight into the world of wedding light decorating. Remember to plan ahead, map out your area before you commit money into products.

Click the link on the right to visit AAChristmas.com and see all of our wedding lights and Christmas light accessories.

--
Zach